A Tracer Study of Former Health Management Students of Divine Word University

78 Namun, Irumai, Chakumai, Papapu, Sion & Semos, Where are they now? A tracer study of former Health Management students of Divine Word University Where are they now? A tracer study of former Health Management students of Divine Word University Kingston Namun, Anna Irumai, Kichawen Chakumai, Samson Papapu, Peter Sion & Irene Semos Abstract Health Managers are essential to the management and leadership of any health care system. Their training plays a critical role in effecting their duties and responsibilities in such a way as to achieve the health system’s goals and objectives. In the Papua New Guinea Health Care System, various studies and national documents, point to a low number of trained health managers as one of the key impediments to achieving objectives of the Health Vision 2050. This tracer study of thirty (30), former Health Management (HM) students of Divine Word University (DWU), provides an insight into the workplace knowledge, practises and skills utilised by these recent graduates whether they be in the public or private health system. An online questionnaire was provided to former students through social media sites and emails. A significant finding was that there were HM graduates working in the public health system at the provincial and national levels of government. Another finding was that the top three personal skills by the graduates in the health system that reflected key HM core program content were i) Leadership and Management skills, ii) Project Planning, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation and iii) Financial Management skills. It was also found that 83% of respondents said that Professional and Christian Ethics was very much applicable to their work. Although limited by the small number of respondents, there is good evidence from this study to say that HM graduates are making a positive impact in the PNG Health System. There is a need by government, through the National Department of Health, to revisit the role that this undergraduate program has, in terms of meeting the required number of junior and middle management positions as required in the country’s health system. Keywords: Papua New Guinea, health management, health care system, health managers, undergraduate students, national health plan, national health service standards, health vision 2050, national health workforce ‘enhancement plan’ 2013-2016, PNG National Department of Health Introduction As the Papua New Guinea health Care system goes past the half way mark in its implementation of the PNG National Health Plan 2011-2020, it continues to face a growing challenge of clinical, management and leadership issues. Asante Contemporary PNG Studies: DWU Research Journal Vol. 25 November 2016 79 and Hall (2011) point that aside from the under-investment by government, weak management and leadership capacity coupled with an inadequate number of health personnel plays a crucial role in the poor performance of the health system. PNG is not an isolated case as public health initiatives in developing countries often fail not because of a lack of scientific knowledge but because of a lack of managerial competence (McEwan, Conway, Bull, & Malison, 2001). Reilly, Brown and Flower (2015) suggested that deeper changes to public service culture, popular attitudes and political leadership may be needed to improve health service delivery, however, they also indicated that inadequate leadership, management and even governance has been often been offered as part of the explanation of the poor service delivery in PNG. Educating or training of health managers is an important and key strategy to improving health service delivery. Ramazani and Jergeas (2015) say that developing health managers’ competencies should be, viewed as a multidimensional and complex. Divine Word University (DWU) has been addressing this area of health need by training and grooming health managers, majority of whom, are recent secondary school graduates, by enrolling them in a four-year fulltime undergraduate program. This program, called Health Management (HM), has been in existence over a ten-year period. This tracer study explores the impact and usefulness of the current Health Management training program in Divine Word University through information from its past students. Tracer studies are used by universities and/or departments largely to obtain feedback from graduates about what is happening in the job market, for curriculum development and improvement (Shongwe & Ocholla, 2011) . The purpose of the study was to investigate former students’ views on how the core competencies of the Health Management have influenced their current jobs. This study is useful for those who are involved in tertiary level training of students who will eventually work in the PNG Health Care System as health managers or administrators. The findings from this study are essential to key policymakers, as they will highlight the significance of training health administrators and health managers to effectively, work in a decentralized health system that is embracing multi- level government reforms. Background The challenges confronting the PNG healthcare system are well documented with many of these challenges stemmed directly from inadequate management capacity. Tordoff (1987) stated that at the time of decentralization (in 1977), this was particularly true of the health sector, where competent, experienced health managers were few in number and management training opportunities limited. This new change in the health system brought a need for new management skills, and it complicated administrative relationships between training institutions and the provinces (Riitta & Kolehmainen, 1992). Over the years, attempts have been made by various levels of government to improve the competence of health managers through trainings thought public and private training organisations (Asante & Hall, 2011, p. 14) 80 Namun, Irumai, Chakumai, Papapu, Sion & Semos, Where are they now? A tracer study of former Health Management students of Divine Word University The National Department of Health (NDOH), with funding from AusAID sought a partnership with Divine Word University to begin training of health managers who would have tertiary level qualifications. In 1998, DWU began offering the Certificate in Health Administration. A majority of the initial intake were sponsored by NDOH and the others were grade 12 intakes. Then it progressed to a two-year Diploma in Health Administration and then in 2001 began the four-year Bachelor in Health Management Program. Over the years, the numbers of NDOH sponsored students have dropped significantly while the grade 12 intakes increased. From 2000 to 2015, there has been on average of 25 graduates per year most of these graduates are assumed to be self-employed or working in the private sector. The Health Management program does not have a ‘residential program’ unlike graduates of the Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) and Bachelor of Health Sciences (Rural Health) Rural Health Extension Officers (RHEO) who have a two year residency program as a pre-registration program that qualifies them to gain their full license for a safe professional health workforce to the community (PNG NDOH, 2013b, p. 34). The HM program, like all training programs for health professionals conforms to the National Accreditation Framework of the Office of Higher Education (OHE), the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and is in harmony with other national policies and statutory documents pertaining to Health Training and Education (Commission for Higher Education, 2010; PNGNDOH, 2013a). Health workforce training Since the country gained Independence in 1975, followed by the Provincial Government system in 1976/77 and 1995 Provincial Governments and LLG Reforms, the Health Training programs remained under the responsibility of the National Government while the delivery of the health services came under the Provincial Administration and the Rural Hospitals (PNGNDOH, 2013a). The responsibility for the Training and Development, is a National Department of Health function historically until in the 1990s when the responsibility became a shared one with the Office of Higher Education (PNGNDOH, 2013b, p. 32). The NDOH recognizes that there is a situation where health professionals, complete their training in PNG, but are considered, as ineligible to practice their specialties in PNG. They called this situation ‘an avoidable waste of scarce public resources’. To compound this, to date the health sector does not have access to basic data on the number, qualifications and distribution of health workers within the sector – both in the public and private sectors (PNGNDOH, 2013a). The NDOH’s Health Sector Human Resource Policy acknowledges that the lack of coordination between training institutions as producers of health professionals, the NDOH and provinces as the major employers of health workers and professional bodies as regulators who are responsible for defining curricula, certification criteria and practice standards needed to be resolved Contemporary PNG Studies: DWU Research Journal Vol. 25 November 2016 81 urgently (PNGNDOH, 2013a, p. 7) . An example of the outcome of this is that 30% of skilled health workers are in administrative roles in PNG while 40% of the health workforce is either over the retirement age, in the retirement age and/or reaching retirement age (PNGNDOH, 2013a, p. 2). National health plan 2011-2020 The National Health Plan (NHP) 2011-2020 outlines the need to build capacity in

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